Booth babes are “the cheapest trick”, says CD Projekt boss

If you can’t lick ’em… well, you can’t lick them. I’m sure that’s entirely against the rules, and would probably get you thrown out of E3. But according to CD Projekt Red boss Marcin Iwinski, booth babes are pretty much inevitable in a male-dominated industry.

“I think it will always happen as long as a part of your audience is male. The cheapest trick is to grab a fancy car and put a booth babe next to it,” he told Rock Paper Shotgun.

“So yes, it’s there. I don’t think having a presentation where it’s a major part of a game is necessarily a problem. It makes sense, because the game is defending itself. So it’s just a part of the world. Some people will overuse it. Others won’t.”

Asked whether that’s not potentially offensive to audiences in that it alienates women and assumes men won’t pay attention if there aren’t boobs attached to a product, Iwinski conceded that it is, “but you have to look at it from the quality of the product perspective. If it’s overused [in marketing], it probably won’t be a big product anyway.”

That sounds nice and everything, but back in reality, sex is already arguably overused in marketing, and doesn’t seem to be damaging sales.

“Really, I think the market is eliminating all the weaknesses and all the cheap tricks. But, at the end of the day, males are making certain decisions through hormones. People are paid to take care of the market and know it very well. Am I offended in some of these cases? Sure,” he said.

“And when people don’t do [these sorts of things] well, it’s obvious and there’s a lot of criticism around it. But you really have to look at it on a product-by-product basis. And then it really depends on somebody’s taste.”

He’d probably have to say that, though, because both Witcher games feature full-frontal female nudity.